I'm looking into running this campaign again for a new group. (Having gone through the work of replacing all the book 3 caravan encounters with regular encounters and so on the last time, I thought it would be easier to do this AP again than try a new one.)
One of the aspects that didn't contribute much last time was the caravan NPCs, both the big four and the various others they recruited along the way. I'd introduce them, and then they'd mostly fade into the background and get forgotten about. I could throw in an NPC ally to accompany the party from time to time, but it slowed things down, and they weren't actually needed because most of the enemies were pretty easy for four PCs to handle.
And I don't think my players ever once made an effort to start a conversation with these NPCs.
NPCs that have worked better for me in the past might have:
- Intriguing mysteries - when their secrets are revealed it changes how you feel about them.
- Severe psychological problems - they need someone to listen to them and give them good advice.
- Conflicts that need resolving - like two people who hate each other but the party needs them to work together.
- Quests for the party - "I want this matter dealt with discreetly. There might be a pair of magic boots in it for you..."
- Moral ambiguity - My version of Skygni the Winter Wolf had a very... practical approach to surviving the frozen North.
- Semi-planned character arcs - where they end up doing something you would never have imagined them doing early on.
- Romance established early - the PCs long-suffering girlfriend follows him around on his adventures, worrying he's going to get himself killed.
- A general sense that they are a little disappointed in the PC and are hard to impress - a stern parent, for example.
I don't think I need them to provide more mechanical benefits. "This person can cast a useful healing spell on you if you return to the caravan," doesn't build much of an emotional bond.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how I could modify the NPCs to make them work better for me?
My Jade Regent campaign, Amaya of Westcrown, started with eight players, so I marginalized the NPCs in The Brinewall Legacy. Ameriko Kaijuitsu mysteriously disappeared after she set up the expedition into Brinestump Marsh, hiding from a lamia assassin related to Rise of the Runelords. Her lower-level half-sister Amaya showed up because the campaign needed someone to escort to Minkai. Koya Mvashti and Sandru Vhiski ran the caravan from Sandpoint to Riddleport, but they did not proceed all the way to Brinewall. Shalelu Andosana never made an appearance in the campaign.
We took a break before starting Night of Frozen Shadows and lost some players. The game continued with three original players and two new players. I made a new PC a caravan master to make up for Koya's abscence. Other NPCs, such as Uksahkka, served their intended role, because with five players I no longer needed to marginalize. However, the other new PC's backstory had a wife Yuki, so Yuki became an NPC cohort played by that player. Ameiko rejoined the party at the beginning of Forest of Spirits and NPC Miyaro from the same module became their guide, so the party eventually consisted of five PCs and four NPCs. But once the party conquered the fortress Seinaru Heikiko in Tide of Honor they began leaving the NPCs there to direct and protect the place.
As for the roles of NPC party followers:
Intriguing mysteries - The three original PCs kept Amaya's role as lost heir to the Jade Throne secret from the new PCs. The new players figured out something was up and learned the truth about her by Forest of Spirits.
Severe psychological problems and Conflicts that need resolving - For NPC party followers those roles do not fit my style of keeping them from stealing the limelight from the PCs.
Quests for the party - That happened in my Iron Gods campaign. The quest giver Val Baine was recruited into the party, because the party member felt that she deserved to come along on the search for her lost father. Likewise, Amaya and Ameiko were essentially the quest givers in Jade Regent. And Miyaro was the quest giver for the House of Withered Blossoms.
Moral ambiguity - The barbarian NPC Yuki had a very axe-based style of dealing with problems, but the ninja PC Ebony Blossom was much closer to a moral conundrum.
Semi-planned character arcs - Don't all significant NPCs have those as part of their related quests?
Romance established early - Yuki was not long-suffering, but she did follow her PC husband around.
In my current Ironfang Invasion campaign, I have had another role for NPCs temporarily adopted into the party, such as summoner Cirieo, inventor Arkus, and kineticist Collin. They were playtest characters as part of Paizo's public playtests of new character classes. However, the playtest characters changed from NPCs to temporary PCs, because letting a player play them provided a better playtest. The playtest characters left the party and dropped to NPC status after the playtest, but the players tended to use Dream Message to call them for help in appropriate situations. The PCs viewed them as reliable friends.
EDIT: On further thought, I often use the NPC party members to fill missing niches in the party. Amaya began as a fighter, but when the party healer left between The Brinewall Legacy and Night of Frozen Shadows Amaya multiclassed to oracle to become the new healer. Val Baine in Iron Gods served as the melee character in the party, because the PCs worked best at range.
Semi-planned character arcs - Don't all significant NPCs have those as part of their related quests?
Then maybe NPCs like Shalelu and Sandru and Koya aren't significant, since they don't have quests.
In my first Jade Regent campaign, Ameiko decided that maybe she didn't want to rule a country after all - that one of the PCs would be better at it than her. That might have made a good character arc if I'd planned it earlier, where she starts with an overconfident attitude, and gradually realises the incredible responsibility she'd be taking on, as people on the caravan die along the way.
Semi-planned character arcs - Don't all significant NPCs have those as part of their related quests?Then maybe NPCs like Shalelu and Sandru and Koya aren't significant, since they don't have quests.
The Brinewall Legacy has a little bit of potential character development for Koya Mvashti. Her NPC Gallery entery says that for the last few years, her caravan stayed close to Sandpoint, frequently stopping there so that elderly Koya could help care for her even more elderly mother. But now that Koya's mother died, Koya is considering traveling farther.
But how does that fit into a campaign? Koya could befriend a PC with a similar wanderlust. But building a friendship requires game time that might be better spent letting the PCs build friendships among themselves.
If an NPC character arc is supposed to guide the PCs, then I would call it a quest. If the NPC character arc arises natural from roleplaying the character without a plan, then I would not call it a semi-planned character arc.
Our argument might be semantics. Some NPCs do provide a compass of priorities to the PCs without being a full quest-giver. That could be an NPC role. I was a player in Burnt Offerings, first module in Rise of the Runelords, and my gnome ranger worked with Sheriff Hemlock in Sandpoint. This made my supposedly Chaotic Good character act more lawful, so the sheriff influenced him. Eventually I changed my gnome's alignment.
How about we combine the compass of priorities role with the moral ambiguity role and call it colorful role model? Koya Mvashti could be a role model of stepping out of old habits and exploring the new. Miyaro stayed with my campaign's party after her quest was done, serving as a role model about duty to the kami, reflecting the Amatatsu sisters supposed duty to their ancestors.
One literary technique about hero's journey stories is to have both an external conflict (we must brave the hazards to reach Minkai and then defeat the oni) and an internal conflict (ninja PC Ebony Blossom had both loyalty to her ninja clan and loyalty to her future lords Ameriko and Amaya). A role model NPC could help illustrate an internal conflict in a PC, adding to the player's immersion in the story.
In my first Jade Regent campaign, Ameiko decided that maybe she didn't want to rule a country after all - that one of the PCs would be better at it than her. That might have made a good character arc if I'd planned it earlier, where she starts with an overconfident attitude, and gradually realises the incredible responsibility she'd be taking on, as people on the caravan die along the way.
Ameiko made the same decision to not become empress in my campaign. It fit her character story in Rise of the Runelords where she was estranged from her father Lonjiku. She broke away from family obligations and made an independent life. Why would she give up her independence to fulfill a duty to ancestors? On the other hand, her half-sister Amaya grew up in an orphanage and was delighted to learn as an adult that she had family in Sandpoint. She embraced her newfound heritage and became empress. Plus, Ebony Blossom preferred Amaya on the throne. Amaya was more accepting for tradition and would be better for Ebony Blossom's ninja clan.
I think the problem is, most of my players have had no desire for role models to influence their PCs. They create the character they want to play, then play that. If they make an evil PC, it's not because they want redemption. Maybe I should be prompting the players during character creation to leave room for growth or have an internal conflict or something...
I wonder if that's why my experience is different from yours here:
"Severe psychological problems and Conflicts that need resolving" - For NPC party followers those roles do not fit my style of keeping them from stealing the limelight from the PCs.
Example of when that worked for me: in one of my campaigns, the party teamed up with a cloud giant. I noticed that during the adventure, the giant had repeatedly been humiliated - betrayed by his trusted advisor, rescued by the PCs he had looked down on - while also having a sense of guilt over the moral compromises he'd made. And I decided he was now feeling suicidal, and I waited to see if the PCs would notice. One of them did, and provided the emotional support he needed to keep going. That didn't steal the limelight from the PC - it gave him a chance to be a different type of hero.I don't have that kind of thing happening in reverse, because most of the PCs I see are wish-fulfilment fantasies who would never suffer from depression...
I didn't use the caravan subsystem at all. Even if it's balanced, it's not as interesting as regular combat. (I also dropped all the other subsystems.)
There were some good resources for making the big four NPCs more interesting here:
Link
...which, unfortunately, I forgot about and I left it too late to set up long-running character arcs for the NPCs, so once again most of them were pointless.
My current thinking is that it works best (for me at least) to rebuild all NPCs that I care about as appropriate companions for the party - simple to run, same level as the party for most of the game, one or two levels behind towards the end. Make sure they're also simple to play - it should be easy for a player to control one in combat.
Plan to have one of them following the party on whatever adventure they're on - maybe not the swamp, I like the idea that this is a rite of passage. In Brinewall, leave them behind so the party has room to pick up Kelda or Spivey - I found them more fun to run than the big four.
I prefer to develop the NPCs by improvising things for them to say as the party explores, rather than stopping the action to discuss feelings around a campfire.
In the end I don't think it's important to give every NPC time in the spotlight. There's too many potential caravan recruits to develop them all without stealing focus from the PCs.